


Make a Mickle Murder

by Darklady



Series: Losing the Strand [4]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Madness, Making no Excuses, Malignancy, Mangled dialect, Mayhem, Misanthropy, Money, Murder, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 02:49:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3712018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darklady/pseuds/Darklady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sherlock Holmes investigates murder in a country house, no one will get off scot free.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make a Mickle Murder

“Come Watson, and bring your pistol.”

While normally my visage at the arrival of my partner is one of joy, in this instance he had interrupted an excellent cigar and the extended soaking of my road-weary toes. The reader must forgive, therefore, any domestic discontent that briefly entered my opinion.

“Is there some prey to catch?” I thought myself quite calm-voiced, given the situation.

“Yes!” Sherlock buzzed past me, occupied with tossing some shirts into a carpetbag. “The night train to Edinburgh.”

_Thus began the adventure of the **Scotch Slayings.**. It is perhaps the only case where I heard Holmes take pay for his silence. You must not think ill of him, futurist reader, for I am convicted in my heart that he should have done so without such a golden persuasion._

_For myself? I shall make no clever narration, but only recount the more notable events as they occur, each in order, as I retained them at the time._

_That this case shall join those select others destined for my lock box rather than publication should stand without declaration. The details are not so innocent as should be released freely under an honest name, but neither are they of such note that a duty to history would compel me to send them forth in borrowed garb. The single advantage of such a matter is that I may record frankly those significant aspects which in deference to public taste would perforce be obscured, and omit the tactical flattery enjoined on the writer who serves so demanding a master as the rotary press machine._

~!@!~

“We have a client paying for this, I hope?” I had packed with somewhat more care, but was still in my same socks and shoes, which had done nothing for my comfort. Neither had the services at the station, for as late purchasers we were resigned to the worst positioned of the sleepers.

“At least one, my dear Watson. At least one.”

“And you will tell me no more?”

“What explanation is needed to take a weekend of country air?” At my hard glare he amended. “In fair time, my dear Watson. I shall value your response more if you observe the matter for yourself.”

~!@!~

I shall not recount our journey from London to the Edinburgh station, nor the onward travels by local from the station out to Stillwallow, nor the wagon transfer to Flatford, lest it create in the reader the same ennui the reality so imposed upon myself. Suffice to say that in time – in far too long a time – we arrived at Haersley.

To describe the place requires very little since Haersley was a modern pile of some pretension but very little architecture. I counted three stories of local red brick, pierced with the usual windows, and topped by the usual attic and dormers. Any distinction – and that was little – came from the glass garden house that reached from the southern side.

“Mr. Holmes? Dr. Watson?” An older woman greeted us at the door. The housekeeper, I would guess. Her garb was not rich enough for a wealthy matron, nor drab enough for a wife in the Scots Presperter mold. “I hope the drive was not over rough?”

I demurred the point. Lies are not my style, and truth would have been rude.

A young maid came out the lower door. Her dark dress and white cap marked her as in the parlor ranks. From her apron, however, she had been working in the kitchen.

“Sorry sirs.” the girl murmured. “I’ll take the bag. 

“Ouch.”

“Are you injured?”

“Sorry, sir. Just a burn.”

I took her hand in my own, turning it palm up. “Not bad. Come up once we’re settled and I will wrap it for you.”

She dropped a curtsey. “Very kind of you, sir.”

She vanished back into the house. We followed the more frontward path to our rooms, although somewhat slower as the housekeeper was no sylph.

Holmes leaned close. “You are a heartbreaker, Watson.”

“I am a Christian, and act as any man would.”

Homes shook his head. “Any man with the virtues of John Watson.”

“I do say! Visitors!” 

I placed the young man who accosted us in the hall as one of the family. His suit was too fashionable by far for a life in service, and from his bouncing nature – an energy which would put the common terrier to shame – he could not have served in a position of commercial responsibility. He was, in other words, one of no service at all.

“Sherlock Holmes.” My partner, for once, sounded honestly amiable. (Knowing him, I trusted neither of those descriptives.)

“Freddie” the young man offered his hand. “That is to say, Frederick Collins Brooks. Not yet esquire, but by the grace of my tutors that should come soon enough.”

“Reading law, I take it?”

“For my sins.”

“You father must be proud.”

“Step father, if you please. Wallace Wotherspoon is no kin to me, and he’s cold out he likes it that way. But you are?”

“Dr. Watson.”

“Please, doctor. It will be good to have a fresh face at table, although that can’t be why the old man asked you here. Wouldn’t spare a dry crust for my fun. So I’ll guess you’ve been summoned like the rest of us, and with as little reason given.”

“Something like that, Mr. Brooks.” I counted the answer honest in its way. The summons was unexplained, even if it had come from Holmes rather than the man I had just heard named as our host.

“I say, do you golf?”

“Not often.” Not ever, but I felt no need to confess an old man’s wounds to a young man’s vigor.

“Pity. What about you, Mr. Holmes?”

“It is not a London sport, but I might try a round.”

“Spiffing. I’ll catch you later.”

With that the whirlwind was gone, and the upstairs trek continued.

“Sarah? Is that our guests?” A thin voice wafted out of the parlor door.

“Yes, Mrs. Wotherspoon. I was just bringing them up to their room.”

I did not need to read the housekeepers face to know that we had found another roadblock. Her shoulders held all the expression required.

I stepped in. 

“Mr. Holmes? Why gracious, you look nothing like I imagined.”

And she nothing like I had expected, a fluff of lace and silk faded into a velvet armchair. Her accent was thick, nothing like the crisp clack of London or the burr of the north.

“Doctor Watson, Madam.” I bent over her limp hand. “My partner will come shortly.”

“A doctor you do look like.” She fanned herself with evident self-satisfaction. “I have never rightly seen a magazine detective, so do pardon my misapprehension.”

“I hope I shall not disappoint.” Holmes sparkled. I feared for reality.

“You surely shall not.” She reclaimed her embroidery. “So why did my husband bring you here?”

“I could not say.”

“Bless your heart. You business gentlemen never can, now can you?”

“Eleanora. Can’t you see the men are tired?”

We denied the point, by manners more than truth.

“Sadie Wotherspoon Downham. I’d apologize for my brother’s absence, given that you’re his guests and all, but I’m fashed of mendin for the bairn.” The newcomer held out her hand in manly fashion. “I can at least offer you tea, which my sister-in-law should have.” 

“I so am mortified.” Her eyes sparked with mortality of another breed. “Do ring for Rose, dearest Sadie. Perhaps you can clever out why they are here.” 

“Please, do not stir yourself.” I demurred. I should rather another tour of the Kush than serve as target between these two Amazon tongues. For the bright, at least I knew I should reveal nothing under torture. I knew less than my interrogators. Some aspect wondered if this was behind Sherlock’s reticence. If so, I commended his foresight.

There was some more chit-chat, but it was clear that the end of our utility found us released.

~!@!~

“Holmes.” I hissed as soon as the door was safe shut. “You must explain this madhouse.”

“Wallace Wotherspoon is our host. The man is something of a minor local magnate – with the local and minor being the more significant of the terms. He does have a good business, however, and he has kept at it regularly. This explains his absence at our arrival.”

That was some comfort. That there was an explanation, may I be clear. The excuse itself was feeble at best.

“Frederick Collins Brooks is his stepson, acquired along with his mother and his mother’s fortune on one of his trading trips to the southern states.” 

“Eleanora Brooks – Wotherspoon being the mother,” I worked out. “So the sister-in-law must relate to Wotherspoon.”

“Sadie Wotherspoon Downham. That pinnacle of podsnappery is his sister and the widow of his first partner.”

“That is the full count of the household?”

“There is also her daughter Nora Downham. Wotherspoon is her guardian, although the girl does not live here. Those, and a few servants, make up the household. Individually they may be of interest, but as a group I can make little of them.”

“I’m sure they will make much of you,” I answered.

If that was all we had come for, my tone let him know that their attentions would be all he should anticipate until we were well back to London.

~!@!~

“Ach, Mr. Holmes. Doctor Watson. Forgive my being a tad late, but the lads were in a bit of a collie shangle.”

I took as unsaid that this last impediment was none other than the master of the establishment, Mr. Wallace Wotherspoon himself.

“Whiskey? Cigar?”

“I shall accept the first.”

Normally I should not have indulged so early in the day, or indeed so early in a business relationship, but the rigors of travel quite justified the tonic.

He poured out a respectable glass, and indeed that word – respectable - would encompass my general judgment of his environment. The office was a small room comfortably furnished with the implements of business. To the far end, set well to take advantage of the window, was a flat-top desk flanked with clerks’ cabinets. Behind it rested a heavy leather chair, companion to the two we occupied. A hemp rug, a set of shipping calendars, and a large map completed the décor. If there were a luxury – and few who knew the climate of Scotland would call it so – it was but the small fire burning under the granite mantle.

“Might I hope that one of you will reveal the reason for this sudden visit?” Neither he nor Holmes seemed inclined to speech, so I took it upon myself to set spur to the conversation.

“I suppose it is time.” Wotherspoon took a deep swallow of his own drink. “I have brought you here to solve my murder.”

“You look excessively mobile for a dead man.”

I did not say healthy, for there was a rasp in his breath that I disliked and his cheeks were red under a sallow tan, but many a hard-drinking man bears the same markers and lives to swallow the whole of his estate.

“I have my days, doctor, I have my days.”

“Holmes. I assume you knew about this?”

“I knew the outline”, he conceded. “Not the details.”

“And the devil is in the details, sir. Such a sharp devil, he shall prick me to the end.” Wotherspoon pushed his chair closer to the fire. “I am currently a prosperous man, some would even say wealthy, but that wealth is not constant. As any speculator I have my good years and my bad. In my youth, fearing for my responsibilities, I purchased a term of insurance. It was for quite a substantial sum. If I die before my sixtieth birthday my estate will be worth 150,000 pounds.”

“And after?” Holmes offered no more than polite interest.

“It is a term contract. After that time there would be no pay-out, as the item is named, and my estate will be a third that sum.” He refreshed his glass. “There you have my trouble, Mr. Holmes. I believe that one or more of the company here gathered will murder me before that date.”

“So why don’t you change your will?” It was the first practical thing that came to my mind.

“And be thought mad? Doctor, when a man after a certain age changes his will there are speculations, especially if he changes it away from what is considered the natural distribution. Beyond that, once he has speculated on his own death?”

“I will write a testament to your sanity.” It would be valid enough, in a commercial way.

“Thank you doctor. I may prevail upon you for that, in good time. There is also the consideration that I do not know whom, in this company of vultures, possesses the guts and gumption to move spite to action. That is your job, Mr. Holmes. I have required them all for the weekend so that you may, with your famed perception, deduce the guilty party before the fatal hour.”

“A very cool move, Mr. Wotherspoon. I should wish my own assassin kept far away.”

“Ach, Doctor Watson, in some ways I might wish to reward their ambition, did the law but allow. The rest of my inheritors are such spineless creatures.”

~!@!~

It was after some further conversation that we were finally dismissed to shed the dust of the rails.

With my inspection of our bedchamber my hopes for a pleasant holiday – few and febrile as they were – grew practically moribund. It was a small room, dark and narrow, with a single dresser set between two narrow beds. The one window was hung in blue broadcloth which, before sun had faded the indigo, had doubtless matched the welsh quilts serving as coverlets. I folded a corner back to expose the sheets. They were unbleached muslin, the sort found in the servants’ quarters of indifferent houses.

“Are you sure of your fee, Holmes?”

“Already paid, my dear Watson.” He continued his unpacking. “It is not poverty of the purse that faces us. I fear our host is a sad niggard.”

“Not miserly?” That was the more common word.

“No, for such is the thinness of Wotherspoon’s character he would stint another even were there no profit in it for himself.”

“For such a charmless individual, I marvel you took the case. Although I suppose skinting ones guests is hardly a capitol crime.”

“But the case is.”

“Is what?”

Holmes jerked, pulled from his distraction. “Capital, Watson. This case is quite capital, don’t you agree?”

~!@!~

I had feared facing a bowl of skilligolee, but I must grant that Wotherspoon did not deprive his table as he did his furnishings. The dining table reflected Mrs. Wotherspoon’s more hospitable traditions. Nothing of the chamber was marked with luxury, but the bright orange poppies in glass vases granted the plain cloth and white porcelain that cheer which is the best ornament to a healthy appetite.

“Sorry darlings!” Before I could rise a young woman slotted herself into the empty seat between Homes and myself. She was a choice bit of jam, very much to the current style, with dark hair twisted up under a bit of feather and spangle.

Her mother frowned across the table. “If you are late, you should not come down at all.”

“I’d welcome the choice, but old Docherty wont allow me a tray in my room.”

“She has work enough, and nay extra hands for madderam.”

“If by foolishness you mean the basic standards of civilized life, mother. Which also explains my delay. Haersley is a barren waste and someone” her glare identified the miscreant – “refused to send Rose up to help me dress.” She flipped the long fringe on her evening wrap.

I noted that the maid - Rose was evidently her name – was serving. Her hand was holding steady, and one could hardly spot the bandage under her white cuffs.

“That’s what your dress allowance brings?” Mr. Wotherspoon grumbled. “Used to be a dressmaker at least gave full yardage for the pound.”

“Don’t you like it?”

“You look like a parrot.”

“You must hate that, uncle, since it means I’m able to talk back to you.” With a huff at her own wit she turned to Holmes. “ Don’t listen to Uncle Grumpy. I’d have flown down if I had known we were having actual company.” She held out her hand. “Nora Downham. Not normally a resident, I assure you.”

Holmes introduced us.

“OH! You’re a detective. How thrilling. Do tell me that Parliament has past a law against utter dullness and you’ve come out to arrest the lot.”

“A false charge, at least against one of this company.”

“You flatter me, Mr. Holmes. I like that in a man.”

“How to you know he meant you, Nora dear?”

“Because, darling Freddie, you only think you are amusing.”

“And you, Dr. Watson. What did you do to merit your sentence?” Brooks asked

“Frederick!”

“Come, mother, you know that I only came because he promised to reconsider funding my partnership, Nora came to talk him into releasing her inheritance so she can move to France, Aunt Sadie is here because she wants to keep Nora’s income, and you are here because you had the bad sense to marry the man. Let’s not pretend like any of us our here of our own will.”

“Uncle Wallace’s will, maybe, but I don’t suppose our London friends could be in that?” Nora Downham tinted her questions with flirtation, but she was as determined an interrogator as the rest of the company had been.

“I simply accompany Mr. Holmes,” I temporized.

“If Mr. Holmes looking for to do business with Uncle Wallace, it’s good he brought his own doctor. Look how it turned out for father.”

“Wheesht! Nora. You make your uncle sound like some tiger.”

“Say a hyena, Aunt Sadie.” Brooks amended. “He doesn’t have the stones to kill, he just lurks around and steals whatever is left when the lion falls. Not much courage in hunting a goose.”

“What a dreadful thing to say! I fear for my blood, truly I do.”

“You do make us sound like a zoo rather than a country house, Freddie.” 

“If we are a zoo, it must be a strange one.” Freddie Brooks pointed around the table. “ We have my mother the goose, Cousin Nora the parrot, the hyena and, what would you call yourself, Aunt Sadie? A lap dog, perhaps? One if the ill tempered yapping ones.”

“And you? Since you are so quick to caw about the rest of us.”

“I’m a wee lamb. Just ask any girl.”

“More a black sheep.”

“So, Dr. Watson.” Nora Downham reclaimed the table. “What sort of beast are you?”

“I’ve been told I’m something of a wolf.” Perhaps a trifle tame from life at the domestic fireside, and given to playing guard dog and herder to my partner’s scattered brilliance, but far from collared.

“Oh my. Did I remember to pack my red hood?”

“And a picnic basket?”

“Unfortunately my grandmother is in Manchester, and the evening unsuited to a long walk.”

“I am told Haersley has quite a glass house.” I suggestionized.

“Grandmother Wotherspoon built it. There are any number of peculiar plants.”

“Might I impose upon you as a guide?””

“Hah! A man is never imposing when he puts herself on that hussy.”

“Please Wallace. She is your own niece.”

“I’ll believe that, her mother being my sister, and that is as far as I would trust that chit’s blood.”

“Damn you, uncle!” Nora tossed her napkin. “Why do you hate me?”

“Hate you or hate lies?”

She stood, tumbling her chair in her passion. “The rest of you may endure his spite but I shant.”

“Nora!”

“Get back here, girl!”

It was too late. Shout as they might she was gone.

~!@!~

“So. Have you my killer?” Wallace Wotherspoon asked Holmes as we left the dining room.

“A bit premature. One should wait at least until tea before bringing out the rope.”

Such levity was unlike Holmes, or at least alien to Holmes facing a serious case. If he thought this nonsense? If he had some other cause?

“I see no reason to suspect any of them,” I answered honestly. “Are you sure one is a killer?

“If one of them is not so proven, Dr. Watson, I shall count this a wasted weekend.”

~!@!~

Holmes and I had retired to our paired discomforts. In the chill I had more than one reason to repent our separate beds, a detail which much delayed my repose. 

“What are your thoughts on the young lady, Watson?”

Not an unusual question, but I thought I heard some tinge of an edge in my partners voice, some touch that suggested his interest went past her shoes or cuffs or any of those usual details.

“I diagnose the young lady with acute virginity, with the co-morbid factors of inheritance and education.” Not without her charms, for those of milder tastes, but a penned lamb had never suited my appetite.

Holmes huffed, caught out. “So long as you do not feel compelled to provide the cure.”

My suspicions ran more to frustration at a boring weekend than to any serious excitation on her part. Not that I devalue my positive attributes, but with age those shift from a young woman’s fancy to those which earn parental approbation. In a young man those nervous starts are oft resolved by a weekend of sport, whiskey, and… women of a professional status. Young ladies, however, do not go on sporting weekends. I said as much, but added, “I think it might mend her of much of her distraction were she to spend a few nights with her thoughts between her thighs, but one can not take on the suffering of the world. I shall leave the mater to a specialist practitioner.”

“What malediction of duty, when you have the cure for hysteria in hand.”

“It is not in my hand, Holmes, and if you do not stop with your wit it shall not find its way to your hand any time soon.”

He tossed his tie aside. “So harshly is the love of science suppressed.”

“I think you mean the science of love.”

“Do you not think it perhaps should be a science, Watson? Consider how modern study has improved life and society in all other aspects. Only the amatory arts are ignored, or when taught given over to amateurs of the lowest intellect. What should be the effect, do you imagine, if rather than being bound in ignorance young women were initiated by the well trained and dedicated. Think of the happier wives they would make.”

“Think of the miserable husbands most English men would make for such demanding wives. Could one in a hundred keep up to the expected level?”

“That I grant. Very few possess your natural talents. I should have young men take their own training, with the emphasis on those arts that bring domestic devotion.”

“And what would you do for the natural bachelors among us, given that you are reordering the romances of the world?”

“They should merit the most careful tuition, and the most devoted instructors.” He rolled his eyes, contemplating history. “Just consider the disaster my own state was until I came to your care, and what fits and fancies I thus imposed on those forced to deal with me. Considered by the philosophy of enlightened self-interest, the good of the commonwealth requires a rational approach to the general romantic happiness.”

“Shall I enlist in your army?” I quipped. “I do recall that outcome the last time I heard such persuasion.”

“Sadly, no. I will not part with even a day of your attentions. It is tragic for the world, Watson, that I am so unphilanthropic, and dismiss the needs of humanity so as to keep your treasure for myself.”

So he had concluded when we heard the sudden thump in the hall.

Opening the door I thrust out my candle.

“Oh my god! My kit, Holmes.”

The maid from the dinner service was on the floor, her spastic movements and harsh gasps made more monstrous by the flickering light.

“The blue vial, Holmes.”

I used my finger to push the formula down her closing throat. The tincture of Chinese herb and coleus forskohlii was a specific I had compounded for desperate cases of allergy. It was dangerous, but effective against coal-bronchitis and certain contaminations of food. It also relieved the response to some topical poisons. That detail, that she had been so exposed, I judged by the welts rising up her forearms.

Three quick slices of my angled blades cut away her sleeves. Exposure of her hands meant her garment too was contaminated.

“Here.” Homes produced a wet towel, efficiently wiping down first her arms and after, with a new bit of cloth, each finger.

“Hold her on her side.” I hated the compression this placed on her lungs, but the risk of suffocation if she inhaled her own vomit was the immediate danger. “We have to get her breathing.”

I broke a tube of salts under her nose.

A rattle followed, and then a long gasp. Three more shudders and she was breathing again, although too weak to sit upright without support.

“What the hell is happening here?”

Mr. Wotherspoon stumbled out, coughing into his blanket in the cold air of the hall.

“I’m not yet certain, Mr. Wotherspoon.”

Our struggles had summoned the ladies of the household, and they now stood scattered around in clumps of confused curiosity.

“Will she be all right, doctor?” the housekeeper asked.

“I have hope, although she will need to be watched until all of the toxin has passed.”

“I will sit up with her.”

Excellent, Sarah. “ Mrs. Downham shooed the others away. “Then the rest of us can get our sleep.” She frowned at the scraps of dress and other cloth. “Let me dicht this up for you.”

Holmes grabbed her arm. “Do not touch that!”

“Ouch!”

He ignored her, focused on raising the black cloth with the tip of a fire poker. Unbundled, it proved to be a smoking jacket.

“There is poison on the jacket.” Holmes announced. “Had the owner slept in it we would be calling the mortician come the morning.”

Thus was Sherlock Holmes once again confirmed in his profession. It seemed Wotherspoon was right about his suspicions after all.

~!@!~

“Mr. Holmes eh? You’re the famous London Detective, I hear. Not much use for a local constabulary to a clever man like you.”

“Do not be deceived by print, Constable McWhorter. I have the greatest respect for the local police.”

“Then you’ll not be taking over the case?”

“Perish the thought.” Holmes settled more comfortable by the fire. “I trust fully in your management. 

It was an honest encounter. Both men were lying, and both knew it. Rather say I knew that Holmes knew, and calculated that the officer was not half so green as he was cabbage-dressed.

I suppose I should set the scene here, although the parlor has already been made familiar to the readership. It was there we had gathered, far too early in the morning, to greet the - in truth pale and somewhat flabby – arm of local law.

Senior Constable McWhorter had command of the police station in Flatford. While my view of the city had been most fleeting, being only the glimpse of a tavern and some stores as we wheeled by, I now judged it by its representative as a most lawful and bucolic hamlet. 

For the constable himself? He was nothing that would shock the London streets, being a bobby cast in the ginger mold. The local man was short, and gone a bit to second dinners around the waistline, but bore himself honestly in the face of actual work.

“Although” Holmes spoke up as McWhorter gave the smoking jacket a curious poke. “You might not want to touch that.”

“Evidence?”

“It’s poisoned.”

“That’s a hize.”

“I believe the gardener has some heavier gloves.” Holmes suggested. “You might want to wrap it in an oilskin before sending it to the police lab in Edinburgh.“

There followed three long beats of silence before I prompted. “You were planning on sending it for chemical analysis, were you not?”

“Right. Just now about to do that. Aff-han.”

“As for Miss Rose Dawlish.” He rocked on his heels, clearly hesitant to risk another correction.

“Swift of you, Constable McWhorter.” I tossed the verbal rescue-line. “She should of course be moved to better nursing as soon as your men can safely arrange the matter.” 

The younger members of the household had not risen with the rest of us. Now Nora Downham slid in, evading her mother’s imposing presence. “Will Rose really be fine, Doctor Watson? Was it not so bad an illness after all?”

“Her recovery comes because she was treated in time. Another five minutes and I should have no hope for her. As it is she will spend a long time mending.”  
This brought general frowns. At first I could perceive no reason, as surely even the most assiduous house maid was not so vital as to make her short absence disastrous. Then a possibility came. “I do hope her family is not greatly dependant on her wages?” Or at least, if they were, that her employer might be pressed to consider her injury ‘taken in the line of duty’ and so continue some payment.

“Rose has no family.” Eleanora Wotherspoon answered. 

“Giving us a we problem, seeing as how the village has no hospital.”

“Oh! Then She should come to my place.”

“I forbid it!” Mrs. Downham came half out of her seat.

“Fash it, Mother. You couldn’t stop bread to rise, and it’s years past when you could stop me.”

“You do not live here? In the village, I mean.” I recalled her saying something to the point, and knew her a visitor to Haersley as we were.

“I live in the city. Edinburgh”, she added, as if to defend from the charge of being so countrified as to think that Stillwallow merited the honorific. “I have my own flat. Well, I share with a school chum, but it’s mine and she won’t raise kerfuffle so long as Rose stays in my room.”

“You would take in a sick maidservant?”

“I’d take in Rose. We’ve been the very dearest chums our whole lives, for all mother has kittens when I say so. Besides, she’s Uncle Wallace’s responsibility, so it’s on him to pay for her keep. He’s no choice but lax the grip on my shillings.”

“Very clever.”

“I’m less a fool then I’m looking it.” She shot the officer a bright smile – down payment on future compliance. “So long as you say she is strong enough to travel, Constable.”

“Just about to ask the doctor that same question, miss.”

“I’m sure Miss Dawlish can be ready by the time you have finished taking all our statements.”

“Statements, right.”

“I suppose you will want to start with my report, Constable McWhorter.” On my word I produced my account of the matter, written out the night before. Much of the bulk was medical detail – accounts of formula and dosage – and as much a matter for the hospital as for the court. Still, it had become my custom and habit to be precise in accounting.

He glanced down the page. “Only doctor I even knew with fair script. Suppose that comes from the magazine writing.” 

“Mine as well.” Sherlock’s single page followed.

“Got in all put down, eh?”

“Except the one question of why Rose Dawlish was carrying the jacket in the first place.”

“Guess I’ll be asking her that.”

“Actually, I believe I can answer,” Wallace Wotherspoon spoke up for the first time.

The man was pale. Clearly he had gained little sleep over the night, and what there was had served him poorly.

“You can, sir?”

“The smoking jacket was mine. I often wear it for reading. Last night, as any here will testify, the evening turned chill. I was heading to my bedchamber, holding a number of letters I wished to review, when on the way up the stairs I realized that I had left the jacket down in my office. Not wanting to turn around, I asked Rose to bring it up for me when she finished clearing the dining room. Her work must have taken longer than expected. I confess I was finished with my letters and indeed had forgotten the request until I heard Dr. Watson in the hall.”

“You’re sure it’s yours, Mr. Wotherspoon?”

“I would offer to try it on as proof, but that would give you two crimes.”

“Nothing to say to that, Mr. Holmes?”

“Not a word, Constable.”

“We’re done for now. I’ll have more questions when the report comes back as to the jacket, discounting the chance that this poison is just mischancy cleaning fluid. That has happened.”

“So Rose can come with me back to the city?”

“Miss Dawlish can go to hospital, but you shant be going to city just now.”

“But I have obligations. I have a luncheon on Tuesday, and there is a dinner Wednesday night I just can’t miss.”

Her smile gained wattage. 

The constable remained unenlightened.

“To that? I’m hoping your statements all fit and this matter is resolved quickly, but the maid near died and that is above my office. ” He thumped his notebook shut with the air of a judge landing the final gavel. “I’ll call in a Detective Inspector from the city. Until then I shall have to ask all of you to remain in place. Excusing you and the doctor, Mr. Holmes.”

“No, no, Constable McWhorter. You are very right. All of us are suspects and must remain until a higher authority arrives to take charge of matters.”

“As you say, Mr. Holmes. I appreciate the attitude.”

“Although – since I am to remain? If I could trouble you for just one little thing?” 

Holmes pulled the officer aside. 

I knew this would not end well.

~!@!~

“Bugger. I suppose breakfast is out of the question?” Young Frederick Collins Brooks stood in the doorway, his tennis whites odd against the somber aspect of the rest of the company.

Of flurry of explanations, history, and excuse that preceded his remark I need make no account. The readership have family enough of their own to know both tune and music.

“I thought you were gone to the City.” Sadie Downham offered this now as a question, despite the form, but rather as a defense of her own failure to summon the lad for the police interview.

“I would have, but I’d promised Nora a game.” A nod to the tennis racket in his hand completed his explanation. 

Nora stiffened. “I can hardly play tennis now.”

“I can’t see why not. Unless you are toddling off with Rose?”

“I can do that.” She brightened considerably at the prospect.

“No, Nora.”

“Yes, mother. I can leave with Freddie.”

“You’ll nay leave with anyone, either of you. Constable McWhorter said we were all te bide until after his investigation.”

“That may work well enough for women, Aunt Sadie, or for the faux-pater who is an old woman, but I have things to do.” 

“Tennis, belike.” Mrs. Downham sniffed in response.

Freddie Brooks hid the tennis racket behind his back.

“Drinking, by yer history.” 

Wallace Wotherspoon huddled over his own morning glass, so I counted the remark as spite more than temperance.

“How can you be so cold?” Nora asked. “Rose nearly died.”

“Dreadful luck for her, but not my problem. I’m off, and you can come or go with me as you will.”

“You can’t, any more than I can go with you. You heard mother. We are all confined.”

“Not me!”

“Bless your heart, Freddie, of course he means you.” Eleanora Wotherspoon looked up from her needlework. “It’s always the men who go around murdering pretty young women. I read it in the Times just last month. There was a dreadful lunatic just over to Bosmarch assaulting young women on the streets. Why, if you weren’t my own blood and bone who I trust like my own soul I’d fear to let you in the house.”

“Fair enough. I’d rather room with the lunatic in Bosmarch than the lot of crazy that is here. Hand me his direction and my hat and I’ll be gone.”

“Constable McWhorter is belowstairs,” Wotherspoon pointed out. ‘If you are not comfortable here I’m sure he can find you a jail cell. They are about as well maintained as your bachelor flat.”

From his slump, I judged that some locations were – despite his disclaimer – less welcome to Mr. Brooks than an en-suite with regular meals. Just not much less welcome.

He turned to my partner. “Mr. Holmes, surely you can intervene.”

“I regret not.” Holmes responded with an absence of regret. “Until the investigation is released or the guilty party discovered we are all suspects.”

“And just when it that going to be? The release, I mean. I know that I’m not guilty of anything except a poor choice in parent, and I assure you I am legally innocent of that due to minority.”

Holmes had lost interest, so I answered. “Constable McWhorter has sent for a senior officer. He may be expected on Monday.”

“Monday! I can’t wait so long.”

“You shall have to.” 

I might have answered differently in my accustomed London, but this flippit did not bear the weight of a city lad with mercantile obligations.

“Don’t carry on like you are the only one inconvenienced,” Nora snapped. “I’m missing a smashing dance while I sit here.”

The young man ignored her. 

“Dr. Watson. You are quite adamant that the Constable can not be persuaded?”

“It is the procedure, Mr. Brooks.”

“I should have the right to bail.”

“Once arrested, and only after the reaching the bench. I should anticipate that likewise for Monday at the earliest.”

“Not to mention you haven’t two shillings, Freddie, any more than I do,” Nora interposed, “and you can’t think that Uncle Wallace would give warrant for you.”

“I’d warrant him a fool,” the old man grunted. “Anything aught and  
‘tis false pleading.”

Frederick Brooks rubbed his forehead. “I shall have to send a telegraph.”

“You can’t, Freddie. We are all confined.”

“I’ll send Mrs. Docherty with it.”

Holmes stood up again. “She is confined also, as is everyone in the building.”

Brooks slammed out of the room. “One of the coppers then. A tinker. The bloody postman, if he makes it past the gate. Someone is bound to be willing to do a chap a service. Some of us have responsibilities more significant than dinner parties.”

~!@!~

“Mrs. Downham.” I caught her attention on the way out. “I need to speak to you. Privately.”

“If you willit, Doctor Watson. I had thought it wee-oors for that.”

It would have been, had my topic of conversation been near what she anticipated. I steered her into the small alcove behind the main staircase.

“What have you against the Dawlish girl?”

“I dinna know what …”

“You were white-faced when Nora spoke of her attachment to the girl.”

The lady pulled her shawl tight. “I hate to claiver.”

“I should not ask you to. This is, however, a most serious matter, and if you know something that speaks to actions or character?”

“Can a mother not leuk ower her child’s connections? Are we become so promiscuous as that in these new-fangelt times?”

“Do not equivocate, Mrs. Downham. I know you are not so unchristian as to despise the girl for her honest poverty.”

“As you say, doctor. There is nay shame in laboring hands.”

“Then it is her connections? Her family?”

“She has none.”

“Her training, then? Was she raised by highwaymen?”

“Sarah Docherty brought out of the orphan home when the lass was just past toddling, and the girl has served ever since.”

“Surely you can not be so harsh simply because the girl is of a lower class than your own?”

“If that what the whole of it… no. I should not say.”

“Not even if life and liberty may hang in the balance?”

“Of the lass herself I know no great evil. Oh, she’s a flibberty thing, and as lazy and frivolous as all younkers these days, but for all that the devil’s no more in her than in any other.”

“Then why do you object to her close friendship with your daughter?”

“They are too close.”

“Yet again you give me no reason why this is objectionable. Certainly it is to Nora’s credit if she has a generous heart.”

“Far too close, Doctor Watson.” She froze, torn between considerations. “I suppose for fair dealing I owe you the tally of it.” Her hands slumped against her knitting. “I said nothing against the lass, doctor. It’s more my own blood that’s at fault, Nora… she has always been of a clinging sort. Oh, she’s a jillit outright with the gentlemen. I’m no more fain with that, let me tell you.”

“My attentions have been entirely honorable.”

“More the pity.”

“You can not want me a rogue.”

“I’d want someone as a serious suitor. Some man’s got to press the point on that girl, press it hard, or I’ll never see a grandwean. Nora’s not half so interested as she makes out. Most girls, they have their crushes at school and then let them go, but Nora? She doesn’t ever seem like she’ll grow up. Sometimes I wonder if she likes men at all. One hears such tales, with these trousered girls and their crushes.”

“That is no crime in the female.”

“Not directly. The kinch is a more biblical one, doctor. Lot’s daughters, so to speak.”

Now that was interesting news. I pressed closer.

Mrs. Downham continued, her voice unsteady. “Rose is a foundling. She has no knowledge of her father’s kin.”

“But you do.”

“I suspect. Back twenty years there were two men in this town with the gold to keep a wallie woman, and one was my brother and the other my own departed husband. If I’m right, doctor, then any intimate connection of Rose with my Nora must be downright sinful.”

~!@!~

“Doctor Watson.” Nora Downham caught up with me on the stairs. “I’m sorry for my emotion last night. I suppose this disaster puts my complaints in better perspective. Life is so uncertain.”

“That it can be, for all I have spent a career wishing it otherwise.”

“If you are still interested in the nursery?” Her smile was a moving-picture display of fashionable flirtation. “Or is that too minor for an important man like you.”

She held out her arm.

I took it.

“Miss Nora, it is as men get older that a nursery becomes more interesting.” 

In this I spoke the truth. If she read only one meaning? That is the limitation of her sex.

“Oh, Dr. Watson, I was talking about the plants.”

“Were you now?” I rubbed my fingers over the sensitive skin of her wrist.

“If I was not?”

“Physiology has always been a passion of mine.” I leaned closer, close enough that she could anticipate my breath on her cheek. “For now, let us go look at your uncles plants. Then we might discuss whatever else might sprout up.”

She blushed. Her fingers tightened on my sleeve.

I pressed in, feeling the subtle shivers though the thin fabric of her modern day-dress.

Interesting. She might yearn for the sweet Rose, but she was not impermeable to animal magnetism.

~!@!~

“It’s my money, damn you!”

“Your money? You haven’t a dime to fly with.”

I had detoured by our host’s office after leaving the charming Miss Nora Downham at her chamber. My intent had been to talk with the man, but listening was proving more productive. It often is. Clearly young Mr. Brooks had adopted the same plan, and with more focused intent.

“I’m of age to inherit my father’s estate.” Brooks rallied. “You’d best be producing his share, or you’ll be joining him.”

“I wonder how Constable McWhorter would respond to hearing you making threats. Not wise to put such things in evidence.”

“Call the constable. I’ll vow that you poisoned Rose just to keep my money in your hands another day.”

“You’ve no hint of proof. If you did, ye’d be gone to the law already. That eager to get my purse, you are.”

“That eager to get my own purse, you mean. It was always my father’s business, for all you want to forget. I wonder, did you murder him in order court the widow, or did you think you’d inherit direct, and only picked up the surplus when you learned otherwise? It has to be one, because I’m dammed if you ever felt for any human on earth. Maybe you did kill Rose. I’d wager Nora was wanting her share, enough to take Rose out of here, and that would be reason enough for a monster like you.”

“One more word out of you, young man, and you’ll be out of funds all together.”

“As if you would dare.” The boy’s tone was a snarl of youth and impotence. “Maybe I should stop reading law and start reading your account books. I’d wager my life they would prove interesting.”

“Ye’d be a fool to gamble against me,” Wotherspoon coughed.

I would be a fool to be caught eavesdropping in such convicting circumstances, so before Brooks could reach the door I moved on.

~!@!~

I glanced in at the parlor. Holmes was not there. The three older women had their heads together. Whatever absorbed that circle of witches a sensible man avoided.

Homes was also absent from the kitchen, although I did find McWhorter actively interrogating a pot of oolong. I did not find the detective until, eliminating all else, I surveyed the rear garden.

“Anything of interest?” I asked. Holmes was leaning over the low stone fence, chin in his hand and his eyes fixed on the far cluster of trees.

“Some details.” I repeated what I had heard between our host and his step-son.

“That is in line with the characters of this drama, but it is always good to have matters confirmed.”

“Do you think that Wotherspoon murdered his partner?”

“Who can say, Watson? You know me better than to think I would speculate on such a distant event without investigation.”

“True or false, Brooks may believe it. Belief can persuade a man to action.”

“Speaking of intrigue – how goes your enticement of the lovely Nora.”

“I swear, Holmes. You only bring me out to take the tasks you find disagreeable.”

“We all have our own talents, and what you do you do so very well. In this matter? ”

“She is beguiled but uncertain.” 

“You are slacking, Watson! I expected you would have the play of her bedchamber by now.”

“That much is on offer,” I allowed. “I would as soon not breach her unless required. The drama after the act would vastly exceed the pleasure during.”

“Hush!” 

I should have taken my partner’s reply for flirtation, save the eagle focus he lent to the far end of the lawn.

~!@!~

“Good day Mr. Brooks ” Holmes stepped boldly into the clearing.

“Oh this I… “ He swallowed, grasping composure with both hands. “I told you I had to send a telegraph.”

“An act that requires two men, evidently.” I flanked them from the opposite side.

“He’s a … friend.” Freddie Brooks managed the least convincing ‘how did he get there’ look since Lady Emilee ended locked in the pie closet with a green-eyed footman. “When I didn’t contact him he came to see if I was all right.”

“College chum.” The other young man offered hastily. His tie was askew. 

“Exactly!” Brooks busily repaired his jacket buttons.

“Yes, I had a few of those myself in my day, Mister?” 

“Joseph Reiden.” The visitor offered his hand. “Call me Joe.” 

“You might as well come inside, Mr. Reiden.” Holmes pointed to the house. 

The newcomer followed with the same drag that I am sure he had used for his schoolmaster in younger years, right down the side glance that made me check for a switch.

Were I to describe him beyond that it would likely bore the reader, for Joseph Reiden was a most undescript character. He had the same collegiate dress and demeanor as Fredrick Brooks, topped with perhaps half the physical distinction. He was dark haired when his friend was fair, brown eyed, and wearing glasses of a moderate prescription. Handsome in the way all muscular young men are unavoidably handsome, smooth of skin and even of feature, he was distinguishable only by the slight line of a moustache gracing his upper lip.

In the clubs of London such men have a given value, but it is neither high nor enduring. One hoped his character might grant him something more over time, or that Mr. Brooks might by his association develop such depth. Where the connection is not soul to soul it is inevitably fleeting.

“So yer a chap what just somehow chose to drop by, are you?” McWhorter extracted the story with the same disgruntled manner he had applied to the rest of the household.

“I was. That is, I had an appointment with Mr. Brooks. A matter of business, you understand. When he did not appear I became concerned and came out to see if he was well.”

“You normally call by the garden and not the door?”

Brooks jumped in. “I can explain, sir. You see, I was out getting some air and I saw Joe – that is, Mr. Reiden – come up the path. I knew that you didn’t want callers at the house so I went to intercept him.”

“Really, it’s all entirely innocent.” Reiden tried again for persuasive, and again failed.

“You can be as sakeless as you like, but we’re nay letting anyone out of this house until we have our answers.”

“But you can’t suspect Joe! Mr. Reiden, I mean.” Brooks protested. “He wasn’t even here last night.”

“He could have been. Wasn’t like I saw him anywhere else.”

“I was in Edinburgh, I promise you.”

“He was. I tried to send him a telegraph. You can ask Mrs. Docherty.”

“And what’s that prove, save that you told a tale?” Constable McWhorter snapped his notebook. “Keep your story for the Inspector when he comes. He’ll check it out right enough. Until then ye get the choice of here or the station cell.” 

“I’m sure Mr. Wotherspoon won’t mind offering you a bedroom,” I prompted.

“Lock him up in town.” Wotherspoon glared from his perch near the wall. “We’re full.” 

“He can stay with me, dear step-father.”

“If you don’t mind, Constable?” Reiden was still trying charm, lacking better tools.

“Mr. Holmes? What do you say to this skillamank?”

“Surely your men have work enough. It would be easier on them were Mr. Reiden to remain here.” Easier on Holmes if he could observe his subjects without extended commute, and the unspoken was as clearly understood and it was conceded to.

“All the bad eggs in one basket. Fair enough.”

“Fine!” Wotherspoon huffed. “If he’s in on this he can hang with the rest of them.”

~!@!~

“I think you are more than a college friend to Frederick Brooks.”

“Sir!” Joseph Reiden dropped the shirt he was folding.

Holmes and I had made our way to the Brooks bedroom under color of sharing part of my wardrobe. It was an honest excuse. Joseph Reiden was built more to my own solid lines than to his friend’s ectomorphic plan, and not even the threat of arrest can excuse a gentleman coming down to dinner in a sport jacket and knit vest.

“I refer, of course, to the business you and Mr. Brooks wish to become partners in.” Holmes practiced that oblivious indifference to implication he had long perfected. 

“Do not listen to Wotherspoon, Mr. Holmes. Frederick is cleverer then his stepfather will grant, and more honest. Yes, we had investigated the purchase of an import business, and yes, Mr. Wotherspoon refused Fredrick the funds – funds that should rightfully be his, seeing as how they came from his own father.”

“Frustrating.”

“Only briefly, Mr. Holmes.” Reiden retrieved his garment. “My own father is not such a curmudgeon, and has a more generous view of our friendship. He has arranged a position for me after graduation with one of the larger trading firms, and arranged that Frederick will take the place intended for me in his own company. We may have to save for a few more years but I trust our proven worth will gain us investors.”

“Investors need to be paid,” Holmes suggested. “An inheritance does not.”

“Were I so cold-hearted, Mr. Holmes, my father is the richer. I assure you I left him in the best of health.” Sorting out the supplies I had brought he tucked the new wardrobe in with what his friend had supplied. “In regard to this case, I can vow to you I am no molester of maidservants.”

“Then you doubt that Mr. Wotherspoon was the intended target?”

“I doubt that God is so just, Mr. Holmes, or that were he so just he would be so incapable. As I am the ever first and never the last, I must disclaim the matter.”

“You do not fear being in a house under suspicion?” 

“I do not fret for myself, if that is your question.”

“But for your friend?”

“Were any to touch Fredrick I should defend him to all my strength. Consider that when you look for crime, Mr. Holmes.”

“And if the villain should strike again?”

“Should he do so more accurately I should cheer, but for all that I would not raise a hand to help the man.”

~!@!~

“We must keep a close eye on Mr. Reiden,” Holmes remarked as we left.

“You think him suspect?”

“Not of this crime, Watson. His vices are much more interesting.”

“So long as one finds sodomy interesting.”

“I always have.”

Now it was my turn to feel the bite of the green-eyed beast. “Remember that I should not welcome your interest in him.”

“Put that from your mind, my dear Watson. It is as you said earlier. The drama after the act would vastly exceed the pleasure during.” He smiled at the inward imagery. “No, the interesting vice I speak of is a different lust, one more mercantile. I rather suspect he will bring a sharper edge to Mr. Wotherspoon’s case.”  
.  
~!@!~

“Dinner is out in the breakfast room, gentlemen. It’s not what I’d like, but until I can go into town we’re eating from the larder, and that’s no gift of heaven I can tell you.”

“I’m sure we shall be grateful Mrs. Docherty.”

“Then you’ll be the first. This house wouldn’t be grateful is you fed them on gold dust.”

“One should think not. The dish would be toxic to the digestion, and the expense quite absurd.”

From the indifferent conversation of the household, the housekeeper proved a sharper prophet than I had expected. Perhaps she was just accustomed to the self-centered nature of the household. Mrs. Hudson would have sent up cold mutton were we half so ingracious, a rule so certain that even Holmes had learned to answer the dinner bell, but clearly Mrs. Docherty had compromised to a rule of silent mastication.

The dishes were plainer than the dinner display, but well made and well scented. Fried white fish, likely trout, filled out a platter of leeks and nips, which was in turn flanked by baskets of fresh rolls. A cold round of roast beef held down the other end. Pride of place hosted a pan soufflé of the country sort, made up with potatoes and slivers of ham. Taking a bite, I was surprised at the greens, which were not the spinach or turnip top common to such dishes but instead green leaves of the nasturtium.

“This is delightful!”

Holmes sniffed at his fork. “Fresh?”

“Indeed it is, Mr. Holmes. I grow my own herbs and such, and make my own tonics. Plenty you can’t get at the grocers hereabouts.”

I took another generous bite of the egg dish. “These you can not get at a grocer anywhere.”

“Watson?” His fork paused.

“They are fine, Holmes. Nasturtium is an excellent source of spring tonic, just unfashionable.” I winkled out a round leaf, smoothing it with my knife to show him the scalloped shape. “One can find them at the apothecary garden in season, but no where else past September.”

I frowned down, taken suddenly by memory – or more exactly absence of memory.  
“I did not notice them in the greenhouse.”

“Have my own section locked off, doctor. Can’t trust the girls not to ruin them, or to pick the flowers for vases, and some plants aren’t for salad, if you get my meaning.”

~!@!~

It was Holmes who noted that one of our company was missing. 

“Where is Miss Downham?”

“She went to her room.” The housekeeper answered. “Poor girl had a headache.”

“Should I attend?” I asked her mother.

“Mayhap. She’s been raggle of late.”

I set down my folk.

“Wait and see if she is still stricken by dinnertime,” Holmes countered. “You wouldn’t want to invade the young ladies boudoir uninvited.”

I knew that last as a jab, but trusted the rest of the company did not.

“Dashed hard to do with that one.” Wotherspoon grumbled. At my query he added. “Be uninvited, I mean.”

“Hush! What a thing to say about your own niece.”

“She probably just overslept,” Reiden suggested. “Fredrick told me how early the police had you up this morning.”

“How early they roused the rest of us, he should have said. Youngster slept past breakfast, the sluggard.”

I ignored the ensuant round of domestic snippery.

“Mrs. Docherty?” Holmes folded his napkin. “I hate to add to your duties but if you could go up and check?”

“I would, sir, but I can’t. That is…” She looked from the carved roast to the dinner table, none of whose habitués had moved from their own interests.

“I’m sure Mr. Reiden would take over your duties.” The look Holmes gave him brooked no contradiction. “Carving is supposed to be a gentlemanly skill, is it not?”

“Of course, Mr. Holmes. I’m glad to pitch in.” 

“Rather pitch the bugger out.”

With that charity the housekeeper headed upstairs and the rest of us returned to our plates.

~!@!~

“Oh doctor!” Mrs. Docherty stumbled back into the dining room. “Miss Nora. Oh Doctor Watson, the poor girl, she’s… she’s dead.”

~!@!~

I settled the sheet gently over Miss Nora Downham.

“Mrs. Docherty is right. There’s nothing now I can do for the girl, but much I can do for the police. If you will leave us? It is my duty to examine the body.”

Holmes herded the rest of the household towards the door.

Sadie Downham pulled away. “I can’t leave my bairn!”

“If you insist, but I warn you that this is no matter for a lady.”

Eleanora Wotherspoon clutched her collar, but rallied. “I will stay with you, Sadie. We must be strong together.”

Argument being futile, I opened my kit. The first item out was a large bone saw.

The housekeeper paled. “You’re not going to go cutting her up now.”

“No, Mrs. Docherty. I am neither authorized nor equipped for an autopsy. I shall simply inspect the body for any signs of misadventure.”

“I’m not one for touching … you know…”

“You may sit there, madam.” I pointed to a narrow pressback chair at the farther end of the room. It looked to be of a spectacularly uncomfortable example of the furnishers art.

From my kit I pulled out the largest of my forceps, a brutal twist of metal with locked teeth. It gave a sharp snap as I unlocked the handles.

Mrs. Docherty shuddered.

To my other hand I added a dental spreader I had acquired on one of our more uncomfortable cases.

Mrs. Eleanora Brooks – Wotherspoon shaded from white to blue.

Setting the last down I produced a nasal irrigator. To the civilian it had the look of an exceedingly large injection syringe.

Sadie Wotherspoon Downham whimpered.

I clacked the forceps again.

Her stomach failed. Spectacularly.

“Sorry sir,” Mrs. Docherty whispered, mopping the ladies lip with her apron. “You’ll just have to manage things on your own.”

Thus free of the distaff contingent, I set Holmes and young Mr. Reiden to carry the victim down, well wrapped in three thick blankets.

Heading down myself, I carried with me a white-wrapped box of dried fruit. They were the candied sort, dusted with a white substance that might be sugar but by a chemical test proved to be arsenic. The top was open, and spaces showed the removal of three figs. Of these the last had been in Miss Downham’s hand. 

“We must set these aside for the police,” I instructed. “They will want to know how they came into the house.”

“By post,” Wotherspoon answered.

I questioned him without words.

“Those are mine.”

Fredrick Brooks snapped around.

Wotherspoon collapsed into the nearest chair. “Not that box – or not that I could swear to – but I ordered a pack of candied fruit from Harrods’s just last week. In fact, I had made a note to complain about the slow delivery.”

Mrs. Docherty had limped back to the company. “They came in this morning, Mr. Wotherspoon. I put them in your office. Suppose I should have made a mention of it, but with all the excitement I forgot.”

“I quite understand.”

“How did they get to Miss Downham’s bedroom?” Holmes asked. He had returned, his sad task complete.

“I suppose she must have taken them.”

“Perhaps.” Holmes dusted his hands. “Or perhaps someone gave them to her.”

~!@!~

Holmes stalked the parlor like a tiger. “I think we must break ranks, loath though I am to allow it. Someone will have to go to town to inform the Constable. Perhaps you, Mr. Wotherspoon?”

He coughed into his handkerchief. “I think I am better here with my sister.”

Mrs. Wotherspoon set down her needle. “If you pardon me, I think we should send Mr. Reiden. He is a stranger here, and was nowhere near come the first misfortune. Of all of us he must be the least under suspicion.”

“Or the most,” Mrs. Downham countered. “How do we know that’s not why he came tae Haersley? He has an interest in your son’s hullion. Fredrick will get it all now.”

“What a horrid thing to say!”

“No more uggsome than was done.”

“I would go, Mr. Holmes, but I’m not really well set for such a long walk.” The lady fluttered her fan in the direction of her generous skirts, and by implication the limbs unexposed below.

“Mr. Reiden is a possibility,” I granted. “Or I could go myself, if someone will draw a map.” My leg offered a contrary opinion, but I ignored it.

“Possible for what?” Reiden came in. He had been longer in the kitchen, but none being foreign none had missed him.

“Walking to town to summon the police.”

“I will if you want, Mr. Holmes, but why not send Fredrick? He has a car. He won’t need to walk.”

Sherlock’s eyebrow shot up. “Can anyone else drive?”

“Nora could but… OK. I guess it’s on me.” Brooks stood. “I’ll go to town.”

“Excellent!” Holmes decided. “You can take the deceased as well.”

“What? Me and….” He sat down again.

“You must, Mr. Brooks. Dr. Watson does not have the facilities to determine the cause of death, and to wait a day or more for first the constable to arrive and then for him to send for the coroner, and then for that worthy to make arrangements for a van? I must fear that all evidence would be destroyed by natural loss.”

“Doctor?” 

“I think you must,” I agreed with Holmes. “I do not like to go against the Constable, but the physical circumstances are such that we must. Consider also that this is a pious locality. The coroner will not thank us if our delay leads to breaking the Sabbath.”

“Dr. Watson is right. We must attend to these matters without delay.”

“But how will we know he won’t just escape?” Wotherspoon asked. “No accusation, mind, but you’re as much suspect here as any of the rest of us.”

“To run would be to accuse himself.”

“Thin comfort that would be, us behind and him a thousand miles gone.”

“I will go with Mr. Brooks,” I announced. “It must be agreed that I have no stake in the estate and no length of acquaintance to make any here my enemy. As I do have a pistol I can guarantee that Mr. Brooks will not stray from his appointed duty.”

So it was agreed. The rest of the family hung well back as Holmes and I gently settled the thickly rapped body into the rear seat. Pillows, settled at neck and knee, assured no sudden jolts would be allowed though to displace our tragic passenger.

Duty done, I took my place in the rear seat, which post I might stand guard.

“Straight to the constable, and straight back.” 

“You have my word on it, Mr. Holmes.”

~!@!~

“Sherlock!” I shouted, desperation filling that single word. 

“Good heavens! John!”

My fingers slipped on the heavy door, and I should have fallen had not he rushed forward to receive me.

“Help him to a chair.” Homes commanded, his force breaking the spell that had frozen the other four. 

With some fumbles and bumps the two police officers who had with great labor brought me this far carried me into the parlor. I came to rest on the divan.

It is hard for a man to describe himself from another’s eyes, but I must have that minute seemed more apparition than man, marked as I was with the mud of the road and decked in tatters.

Holmes eased me from the shreds of my jacket. “God, John, what disaster overcame you?”

“Where is Fredrick?” Reiden demanded. “What have you done to him?”

“I bring bad news, Mr. Wotherspoon. The worst. We were on the road to Flatford. I swear, I saw no sign. We were riding along. Frederick Brooks was driving well, and the road was smooth, yet when we were no more than a mile out something exploded. The engine, I must think. It was…” I shuttered, my eyes closing as Holmes mopped my forehead. “I can compare it to nothing but a mortar exploding. He lost control, perhaps lost consciousness. We were going over the lade bridge. The car broke though the bridge rail. I managed to jump but he went over and…”

“OH.” Mrs. Wotherspoon clutched at her heart. “My son! My Freddie!”

My hand trembled as I reached for her. “I am so, so very sorry.”

“Rest yourself, John.”

“No more than that to be said, Mr. Holmes. It was a bad scene when we came on it. The other lads are still at work bringing the car up from the water, and until then there’s naught more to say.”

The second young policeman nodded his concurrence. “Constable thought the doctor should go on to hospital, but he insisted on coming here. Very stubborn man, is your Watson.”

“Perhaps you should dover?” Mrs. Downham began.

“No need,” I cut her off. “I’ve nothing broken, which I count a miracle. I’ll mend with rest and time. Mostly time.”

“But my son?” 

“We’ve no sign of him yet, Mrs. Wotherspoon, but I can’t think it’s good.”

“The boy was always bad. This is proof that he was the killer all along. Like as not with this man as his accomplice.” He pointed to the visitor, Reiden. “Arrest him!”

“I’ll need the Inspector for that, sir.”

Mrs. Wotherspoon pulled herself up. “Docherty, get my coat.”

“Mine also,” Reiden insisted.

“No madam, she can’t do that. Not just yet.”

“I must go to him.”

“Sorry, ma’am, but we have to wait on the Inspector. He was at the wreck site. He shouldn’t be long.”

“Get out of my way!”

“Please, Mr. Reiden. I don’t want to arrest you.” 

“I do want you to arrest him. Right now!” Wotherspoon spasmed in his rage.

The policeman took Reiden by the arm.

Holmes leaned forward. “Not what you planned, Mr. Reiden?”

“Nothing I planned, Holmes.”

“Yet you were the one who suggest the car, the one who suggested that Frederick Brooks be the driver. You are the stranger who had no honest business here. Why should we not condemn you?”

“Good enough for me, Mr. Holmes.” The policeman locked on the cuffs.

“You bastard! My son is gone! However shall I endure?”

“Here, my dear.” Wotherspoon offered a small measure of brandy. “I’m sure this will calm your nerves.”

Homes took the glass. “I wouldn’t drink that.”

“Not if you want to live.” Standing, I shook off the dust added for my performance. “Inspector Gregson? If you are ready?”

A well-known figure, well known at least to Homes and myself, appeared from behind the door. “You are under arrest, Mr. Wotherspoon.”

“Now, Inspector, if you would call in our guests?”

“Freddie!”

“Nora!

Of the scene that followed, of the exclamations and joy, I shall not trouble my pen to record. As said, those with wanted kin will need no description and those without would gain no familiarity from the account.

“Now that the matter is concluded, Holmes, you must tell me how you knew.”

“Yes indeed, Mr. Holmes. You owe the Yard at least that much for conforming to your caprices.”

“A matter of psychology, Inspector Gregson.” Homes skated free of the embracing survivors. “It is as you observed earlier, Watson, Mr. Wotherspoon is a man to deprive others even when he gains nothing himself.”

Addressing the old man, Holmes continued. “You spoke of insurance, but that was a distraction. You will not see sixty. You will not see your next birthday.”

“Not if he hangs.”

“It is more than that, Inspector. I will yield if Doctor Watson holds the contrary, but before coming to me Mr. Wotherspoon visited a most eminent specialist in the medical profession. Dr. Stamford diagnosed a growth of the lungs, and such things are swiftly fatal.”

“Stamford? My friend Stamford?” That did explain how Holmes came by his information. It also, I vowed on the spot, explained who would be paying for my club lunches for the next fortnight.

Holmes, however, ignored my righteous indignity.

“Most men hearing their mortality would have gone to the church, or to the tavern, but you asked him for my direction, for the address of a consulting detective.”

There came the explanation why Stamford had reported to Holmes. It was hardly a custom for every patient, but once Holmes’s name came to conversation to fail in conveyance would be nearly mispractice.

“How it must have eaten you to know that you would be gone and your victims would finally enjoy what you would have stolen from them.” Holmes cut off the howled denial. “You knew my reputation, if not the range of my acquaintance. You undertook to employ me with the intent that you would kill and set the clues so that any survivors would be condemned for your murder. Then, live or die, they could not inherit.”

“So you set this play act up, with the automobile?”

“How else could I catch a killer without risking further deaths, Gregson? Once Watson spotted the poisoned candy we knew Nora Downham was the next victim. Her death allowed us to move her from the house, as did selecting Frederick Brooks as her transportation.”

“And Reiden here?”

“An unexpected player, and no part of the drama until he inconveniently inserted himself. Fortunately he was willing to take his part under my direction.”

“Which role I would resign, if someone would remove these shackles?”

“Homes?”

“Let him free.”

“Thank you.” Reiden rubbed his wrists.

“Doubtless our host had some imminent fatality planned for Mr. Brooks, but as we did not know the details it seemed better to anticipate action. Thus we invented his accidental death by automobile.”

“So there was no bridge?” Reiden asked.

“Not a bump, Joe. The automobile remains unscratched, parked just past the gatehouse. I drove safe to town, Nora sitting once we were out of view.”

“Which was none too soon. Those blankets stink!”

“You were most vallient, Miss Downham.” I allowed. (In truth she had been willing to ride in my lap the full distance, but I did not think this a detail my partner required.)

“We came up to the police station and Doctor Watson there disclosed the entire plot. The Inspector, however, wanted proof so the doctor painted up and acted a scene to let you all think I was dead.”

“And me. I was dead also.”

“You were already dead, Nora.”

“You were both thought dead, which was the center of the plan.”

“So, thinking the younger generation gone, Wotherspoon tried finish the job by poisoning his wife? Gregson suggested.

“His wife and his sister.” Holmes pointed to the brandy tray, where a single glass remained. “He simply had no time to pour the second dose.”

“But why did he kill the maid, or did he try to? Rose Dawlish had no connection to him.”

“I can answer that, if Holmes will allow me. First, to create evidence of a murderer, so as to hold his detective’s attention to the supposed case, and that of a crime where the logical victim must have been himself. Past that, he had a special reason for his particuliar choice of innocent.” Condensing my earlier conversation with Sadie Wotherspoon Downham I concluded “The man was determined to take every penny to his grave and beyond. He suspected the girl Rose was either his bastard daughter or the illegitimate child of his sister’s husband. Either path under Scots law might have given her some claim of inheritance.”

“Very good, Watson. You have hit every point.”

“He must be mad.” Gregson marveled.

“He is likely to plead that, faced with a rope.”

“Not a plea he should stand on in court,” I countered. “I have already given Mr. Wotherspoon my word that I would testify to his absolute sanity.”

~!@!~

“Thank you, Mr. Holmes.” Joseph Reiden caught up with us in the hallway. “Fredrick is waiting to drive you to the train station.”

Reiden had lost a bit of his youthful gloss, but to my eyes solemnity suited him better. With time and experience he might even blossom into an attractive manhood.

Homes checked the young man collar to cuff, drawing similar conclusions. “I assume you will remain at Haersley to comfort your friend.”

“And to assure his interests.”

“I should expect no less.”

“In reference to which?” Reiden held up a thick envelope. “There is one last service, sir. One I think due me.”

“Which might be?” 

“Silence, so much as possible. This story will be scandalous enough. I would prefer this sad business did not reach the London papers.” He turned my way. “Neither would I care to see it in fiction, Doctor Watson.”

“One can hardly command the muse.”

“I am more willing to gild that goddess. Do assure me she is as fickle as the rest of her sex.”

“A high fee to pay to buffer the family name.” 

“Yet fair bargain for both of us. Mine is a pure commercial interest, and one well worth investing in. The first of which investment must be in… let us call it good will and reputation. To begin a business is both costly and uncertain. It is better far to assume an enterprise already well regarded.”

“Well regarded so long as the founder is not known to be a murderer and a lunatic?”

“A most regrettable foible, but one which can be overcome with the inflow of new capital.”

“New capital being a hundred thousand pounds? I doubt the insurers will pay out for a hanged man.”

“Tell me, Doctor Watson.” His smile was ice and blade. “Do you think Wallace Wotherspoon will survive to see his trial?” 

“A country jail cell is harsh on the lungs of a healthy man.”

“Harsher still if that man has ventured to murder country people. Most harsh if he has no friends to intervene for his comfort. I assure you Wotherspoon will see neither a penny nor a crust from my charity.”

“Yet you told me you were not cold-hearted.”

“Should I pretend to mourn, Mr. Holmes, in view of what he wished for Fredrick? What he plotted for Fredrick’s mother, an innocent lady who had trusted him with her fortune and her fate? What he did to Rose and nearly managed with Nora, who for all her folly is a decent girl who offered him not a jot of harm. I did tell you the truth, Mr. Holmes. I would never have raised a hand towards the man’s doom, but I will read his funeral sermon with excessive pleasure.”

***FINIS DOYLE GRATIA***

 

Authors note: Scotch Slayings  
Yes, I am aware that the people are Scots. Scotch is also a Victorian slang for ‘cheapskate’. It was a clue.

©KKR 2015


End file.
